What is a friend?

Friends are extremely important to me, even more so since we embarked on our expat journey in 2011, in the absence of family, friends have filled the void.

Everyone has different definitions of what makes a friend and categorises some as best, close or acquaintances. A friend is loyal, honest and someone you can trust, it is a mutual but not exclusive relationship.

Friends can also be toxic which I've learnt at great detriment to myself. I've had 3 particular friendships throughout my life lasting each for almost 15 years, face to face friends, friends who have looked after one another's children, both turned to each other when times have got hard and celebrated the good stuff, but I noticed changes. Where they'd become too honest about me and my family, but not been able to accept any defence from me. As a true friend, I've given them the benefit of the doubt, hung on to the possibility of the friendship recovering, then each time they've quite literally cut me out of their lives. On the last occasion an actual letter was written telling me I was no longer welcome at their house after listening to years of having my children put down. I dared to criticise one of their adult children in their 'own home' and that was it, our friendship became 'unbearable' I realised after I read the letter how controlling the friendship had been, only interested in what was going wrong in my life, it was negative and I felt free.

I've made friends easily throughout my life, I'm outgoing, talkative and social. Some people find that over powering and are wary of me, but those who take the time out to get to know me, make life long friends.

I don't have a best friend, different friends fill different roles and those roles change as we change, as our children leave home, we move around and have reduced contact.

I had groups of different friends during my school years. I'm still in touch occasionally with one friend from the age of 5, but that's only through facebook randomly, her daughter now 28 is an instagram friend, so we see what one another families are up to but with little interaction.

I've work friends, former neighbours, the kids school friends and football club parents that I keep in touch with, but other than when I visit the UK or they come out to Dubai, these friendships are reduced to letter writing and messages.

I have 2 old school friends who I have regular online contact with and visit when I'm in the UK. 3 friends who were made through when the children were in school, 2 in the UK and 1 in South Africa. I have 1 friend I met in Uni and like 2 sets of married friends of Peter, whom I've known for the past 19 years and we see one another a lot, we just don't message outside of my UK trips often.

The rest of my friends have been met online, some I've never met, some I've flown 1000's of miles to visit, some I just message, some I write to some just pop up for time to time. Out of those online friends, I have 3 I see weekly when I'm in Dubai, 4 that I visit in South Africa who became real world friends and quite a few in the UK that I randomly meet for coffee when I visit. I spent last week in Germany with friends I made online 7 years ago and we see one another at least once a year, since I moved to Dubai and them over to Germany.

I consider myself to be fortunate, I have lots of friends around the world, each and everyone of them is special to me in their own way. Some of my friends know one another, some are purely online only, some made the transition to the real world, some I've yet to meet. Some are friends through letter writing only.

Each and everyone of them is valuable to me. I notice their presence, I notice their absence. Last year when my father died, my friends in real life and online got me through it. During this time I realised a facebook friend had been absent online, we'd arranged to meet that summer but had to postpone. I messaged her daughter who informed me her mother had died earlier that evening. I'm never too busy or occupied to have time for friends, even if in some cases, it's too late to do anything.

This is my best friend, my husband Peter, he who knows everything there is to know about me. The rest of you just get snippets.

When a friend dies.

Life is too short for regrets and I was reminded of this, this week when someone I used to call a very dear friend died unexpectedly from a heart attack on Wednesday aged 49. We were very close when our children was small, along with another couple, we celebrated birthdays, christmases, child care together. She was god mother to my youngest child. We were there for one another when things got tough, we laughed, we cried, we relied on one another. Then things happened in our lives and we grew apart. I remarried and moved away, the other friends also moved away within a year and something strange had happened with the woman who died, her contact with myself and the other friends stopped and the relationship dwindled into nothing. A few years ago she came back into the lives of the other couple, but by this time we were living abroad and I never got the chance to find out exactly what went wrong. My relationship with the other couple has become distant also, but we still keep in touch and there have been the occasional meet ups when I've been in the UK. I'm very grateful that they informed me of her death yesterday, very shocked also and I feel that a part of life has now closed for ever. Old people die, people who have led full lives, not people my age, not my friends.

I question my own mortality on occasions, I think about the older generation in the family, I assume that I will outlive my parents, my aunts and uncles. I remember when my nan passed away in 1994 and my mother saying, 'that's it, I'm the adult now' and I was puzzled by it. I now understand what she means, her generation is in charge now and it's made me realise it won't be many more years before I'm the oldest one left in the family.

For my friend that isn't going to happen, she had two grown up son's who all of a sudden have become the adults, the one's in charge, the one's left behind.

Although we weren't in contact these days, I grieve for a lost friendship that can never be put right now, I grieve for her adult children. I grieve for opportunities lost and for the future when I become the adult, the person in charge, assuming that life follows the pattern I grew up expecting. Receiving this news yesterday, just goes to show we never know what is going to happen in our lives and that we should make peace with ourselves and others before it's too late.

How a cat is changing my life

This is Pushkins.

She has been hanging around where we live for a few months now, in the garden but never really venturing close enough.

Two weeks ago she started making more visits and allowing us to stroke her. We gave her the odd bit of food and water to drink, then she started being a bit more adventorous and choosing to sit on our laps. She was well cared for, shiny, clean fur that didn't leave a greasy residue on your hands after stroking her and no 'cat' smell.

So we started feediwg her, I've advertised on the boards and at at the front and back gate with my phone number but no one has been to claim here, so I guess she's staying.

I'm not an animal person, we had cats and dogs when I was a child, I've owned fish and a few birds over the years and the kids have had hamsters, but that's been it and these pets have mainly been because 'everyone else has them'

When we moved to South Africa we looked at getting a dog, as I wasn't working and I'd have time to look after one properly, and after many visits to the rescue centre we gave up 'What about going on holiday, who will look after it?' and besides we never actually found the right one.

But we've found this cat, or rather she's found us.

She spends her days snuggled up on my lap, she follows me around from room to room, she is always waiting for me when I come home and wake up in the morning, she sleeps in the house with a window open so she can come and go at night, she cries for me if I'm in the bathroom or I go out. Hubby and the kids enjoy having her around, they say I am calmer, more relaxed, chilled out.

She provides me with some company. I'm dreading someone coming to claim her, I'm worried about going away for 4 days this week (have arranged a friend to come and feed her) and I know when we move to the other side of the estate I'll be back up here everyday to fetch her, until she settles.

She has given me something to do with my day even if it is stopping her from getting up on the bed with me and interferring with my lap top as I type.

5674 miles for a tweet up

Many years a go I met Suzi, @cantbarsed2, aged 14. We were friends for 2 years only, till she left our home town and moved to London.

I visited her in London many times and we last saw each other, aged 20 in 1992, after I stayed at her flat for the night prior to flying to Barcelona to the Olympic games. I had a baby by then and our lives went in different directions.

3 years ago we rediscovered one another on friends reunited, a few chats, added one another on facebook, tea bags were sent...PG Tips of course.

I reconnected we Suzi via twitter June/July 2011 and I invited her out to visit, work got in the way for her, but we became friends again.

I went back to the UK in December 2011 and we met for a couple of hours over lunch at our old local pub and we got on wonderfully. The visit was too short.

10 days ago I collected Suzi from OR Tambo airport, our first proper time together for 20 years. Her plane landed early and I was just pulling up in the carpark, she must've thought it was a big wind up when she walked through arrivals and I wasn't there to meet her.

We have spent the 10 days, gossiping, catching up on 20yrs with no real knowledge of one anothers lives, sharing both the good and the bad times.

We all got on really well, the kids responded to her, hubby got on with her really well, she even unloaded the dishwasher and swept the floor...without being asked or having it suggested...lol

We went to see Rhinos

We went to Pilanesburg to see the Elephants

We went to Krugersdorp to see the Lions

Sandton City shopping

Soweto

A day lazing in the garden, with our newly adopted cat (it adopted us)

Walking with giraffes and zebras at Groenkloof

Lesedi Cultural village and Cheetah reserve

Centurion Mall

Suzi left South Africa this evening. I am sad to see her go, she will hopefully be back in June, if work gets in the way I'll see her in the UK in August.

It won't be 20 years before we meet up again.

Does anyone else have a friend like this?

How do you manage a broken friendship?

When a marriage or a sexual relationship comes to an end, we know why. Rarely does a divorce or a break down in a relationship pass quietly. We either get to vent, blame, accuse, explain, beg via text, a letter, face to face or in court. Although you may not want this to end, you may feel it can all be resolved, go back to the way it once was, at least you know why, how and when...even if it was all your own fault.

When a friendship comes to an end, that's alot harder to deal with and often it just stops, no explanation, no chance to discuss/yell/accuse...it just stops.

It's hard to deal with and sometimes, in most cases, you'll never know why or understand how such a valuable friendship, where you've shared EVERYTHING, can suddenly come to an end.

I'm sure I've been guilty of this myself, but had anyone ever written/called/texted I would have replied, I would have explained why...but no one ever has.

The first time I was dumped, I knew why...I wasn't having a relationship whilst still married (please note I am now married to the man I was having the relationship with and we were both seperated at the time)

She was godmother to my son who is now 19, we shared a flat, we worked together, I rescued her from some serious dodgy situations. I took her to barcelona to the 92 Olympics, I won a competition, she missed most of the games preferring to drink or sleep late, it annoyed me but we didn't stop being friends. She met a bloke, they had two kids, I was godmother to their son, she never married, she discovered God and after attending her son's 2nd Birthday party she informed me that she found it difficult to be friends with someone in my situation and that was that...didn't dwell on that too much, moved on quickly...Hypocrite

The second ending of a friendship occured at almost the same time, this was my friend and confident, when I started my new relationship, where I stayed when my marriage ended. She had an open door policy, never needed to book anything just turn up for coffee, cake, shopping, gossip and her the same with me, I started to notice that I would pop in and a mutual friend would be there and say 'where were you last night, we had a great party' and she'd remain silent...I stopped going round so much and one day when I turned up, having given her some space she asked me not to call in again and shut the door. The mutual friend asked her why? she wouldn't tell them. I asked mutual friend not to bother asking again and shortly afterwards, mutual friend informed me she'd been treated the same way, as had other friends...a breakdown? never found out, although all I do know is that I was in a new relationship, mutual friend with moving and another friend had a baby, maybe she felt left out, her life was going no where, I'll never know. 11 years later she applied to be my friend on facebook, I declined.

The third friendship that ended was last April after 12 years, she was single, married, divorced, 2 kids, moved home with her parents, I was married, divorced, single, married and moved...we saw alot of oneanother, if anything ever went wrong we dropped what we were doing to support the other. On reflection she dropped what she was doing and I went to her, whether it was my problem or hers. During these 12 years she dropped me regulary for another friend, her friendships were always intense but would come to the stage where she'd be on the phone asking me why this person had done this or that to her, or hadn't invited her to a wedding/christening etc, she made this other friends god parents, bridesmaids etc I was always of the belief that I was more like family to here, we had some good rows/disagreements especially over opposed parenting and kids behaviours, but we always remaind friends. I posted some pics of us, both drunk over the years and some family shots, xmas's spent together, holidays etc in a private folder on facebook...and that was that, she accussed me of being spiteful, putting her daughters life in danger as her father could see them. She wrote this in the maintimeline. I tried to call her, she refused to answer, I sent a text and a PM on fb saying it was a private folder only her and I could see that, she wrote some awful stuff to me, threatening to lose me my job in child protection. I explained again it was a private folder and no one else could see it, I deleted the folder sent her a text to say put your own house in order first, your teenage daughter has an open account with pictures of her sister and you've put your GPS location and mobile number on your profile and that was that.
i sent birthday cards last year, she ignored her god son (my youngest) ignored my eldests 18th, xmas etc. We emigrated I sent her a text, she wished me well, I wrote to say sorry if it had all casued her a confusion, she hasn't replied, her daughter and my son are still friends on facebook, I've not had a response from the letter I wrote to her parents to say hi, but her sister did reply.

I promise you this is the last one.
Visited friends to say we were moving to South Africa, 'how exciting, I grew up there' lots of stories etc. Sent an invite for our leaving do, recieved a text to say 'can't make that night, all the best x x x' no suggestion to make another date, no request for address, but I've written and sent cards for their birthdays etc.

It hurts, its unfair, they owe me an explanation, I can make ones up like, jealously, being left out, left behind...but I'll never know.

It takes time, it does offend, it does upset but I guess I can't prevent it from happening again. Friends 1, 2 & 4 have now been put to bed, but friend 3 does puzzle me still and sadly I'm looking forward to the day she does get in touch and I ignore her, childish I know...but revenge is sweet.

talking has helped me get it off my chest...do feel free to share.